Following the continues loss of viewership over the last years, now Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) is seeking to generate revenue by monitoring online video websites. The Minister of Communications, Mohammad Azarjahromi, tweeted that the IRIB has demanded that five online content producers must each pay nearly half of their income to the IRIB. The constitution states that the IRIB has exclusive rights to produce visual media. Experts have told Shahrvand, in spite of an annual budget of 15 trillion IRRs ($357m), the IRIB continually loses viewership and is effectively bankrupt. Under these conditions, video distribution websites such as Aparat and AIO (YouTube is blocked in Iran) which sometimes have viewership in the millions are seen as a threat. Aparat recently announced that it has 14 million unique visitors every day. Since approximately 70% of bandwidth in Iran is spent on watching videos, content creation can be a lucrative for online businesses.
